Calvary (monument)

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This article is about crucifix. For complex of chapels, see Calvary (sanctuary).
Calvary in West Virginia in the United States.

A calvary is a type of monumental public Christian cross, sometimes encased in an open shrine. Wayside crosses with or more commonly without sculpture can also be found in Devon e.g. the Dartmoor Crosses and Cornwall and in other parts of Britain referred to as High Crosses. Usually a calvary has three crosses, that of Jesus Christ and those of impenitent thief and penitent thief.

History[]

Calvary at Myadzyel in Belarus.
Calvaire at Notre Dame de Tronoën, in context
Calvaire in Pleubian

The oldest surviving calvaire, dating to between 1450 and 1460, is at the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Tronoën in the town of Saint-Jean-Trolimon, in south Finistère, near the Pointe de la Torche. This is raised on a large base which also includes carved representations of the Last Supper and scenes from the passion. Calvaires played an important role in Breton pilgrimages known as Pardons, forming a focal point for public festivals. In some instances the Calvary forms part of an outdoor pulpit or throne.

Calvaires are to be found in large numbers throughout Brittany, and come in many varied forms.[1]

A 16th-century calvaire from Louargat, Brittany, transplanted to serve as a World War I memorial, stands at the Carrefour de la Rose near the Belgian town of Boezinge north of Ypres.[2] The most notable Calvary monument outside Brittany is at Lourdes. This was specifically intended to represent Breton Catholicism. It was created by the sculptor Yves Hernot in 1900 as a gift to Lourdes from the main Breton dioceses: Rennes, Vannes, Quimper and Saint-Brieuc.[3][4] The monument comprises a single central cross set within a raised square base at each corner of which a statue of one of the witnesses to the crucifixion is placed.

In northern France and Belgium, such wayside calvaries erected at the junction of routes and tracks "function both as navigation devices and objects of veneration", Nicholas J. Saunders has observed[5] "Since medieval times they have fixed the landscape, symbolically acquiring it for the Christian faith, in the same way that, previously, Megalithic monuments marked prehistoric landscapes according to presumed religious and ideological imperatives".

Gallery[]

See also[]

  • High cross, Irish and British sculptures
  • Russian Calvary cross
  • Memorial cross

References[]

  1. ^ New York Times, Brittany's Church Towns Harris, AP, October 16, 1994
  2. ^ Saunders 2003:10 and illus.
  3. ^ Lourdes Official Website
  4. ^ Don Sharkey, After Bernadette: The Story of Modern Lourdes, Kessinger Publishing, 2005, p.92.
  5. ^ Saunders, "Crucifix, Calvary, and Cross: Materiality and Spirituality in Great War Landscapes", World Archaeology 35.1, The Social Commemoration of Warfare (June, 2003:7–21), p. 9.
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